WAEC Debt: Okorie’s sponsored intervention on to save crisis

The motion by a two term member of the House of Representative, Honourablle Linus Okorie, may have come as the only rescue to the lingering problem of indebtedness of about 19 states to the West African Examination Council.

The body (WAEC), had threatened that it will not release the result of candidates that sat for the exam from the states that were owing her.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday urged states owing the West African Examination Council, WAEC, to pay the registration fees of government-sponsored candidates for the 2014 and 2015 examinations.

The House took the decision following a motion of urgent national importance sponsored by Hon. Linus Okorie (Ebonyi-PDP) and unanimously adopted by the members.

Mr. Okorie who expressed concern that over 600,000 candidates risked the threat of their WAEC results being withheld by the council, stated that the incident was triggered by the inability of the affected states to settle the alleged debt had led the council to bankruptcy.

He said “The threat if implemented will affect more than half of the 1.2 million innocent young candidates that sat for the examination, disrupt their academic pursuit and disorient them psychologically,”

“This alleged financial constraint is said to be negatively affecting the capacity of the council to meet its financial obligations, particularly its supervisors, examiners and service providers’’

The House, therefore, resolved to constitute an adhoc committee to urgently intervene in the alleged debt crisis.

It stated that the committee would report back to the house within one week.

On Monday, WAEC had threatened to withhold the results of candidates of unnamed 19 affected states over an alleged four billion naira debt owed the council.

The Head of WAEC in Nigeria, Charles Eguridu, said:

“A total number of 19 states in the country owe the Council in respect of entry fees for state government sponsored candidates for the May/June 2015 WASSCE. Some states also still owe the Council registration fees for the May/June 2014 WASSCE.

“We, therefore, want to publicly plead with the affected states to off-set the registration fees of their candidates as soon as possible, as we cannot guarantee that the results of their candidates for the May/June 2015 will be released along with others”.